British sprinter Zharnel Hughes reveals his Linford Christie screensaver inspiration

Zharnel Hughes has revealed how a phone screensaver of Linford Christie is inspiring his bid to become the Olympic 100 metres champion.

Christie, 64, was the last British sprinter to win gold in the Games' blue-riband event when he triumphed at Barcelona 1992.

But Hughes broke the legend's national record last summer with a time of 9.83sec – and he now wants to emulate his Olympic success in Paris.

The 29-year-old's screensaver is a storyboard of Christie celebrating in 1992, him winning last summer's UK Championships, an image of an Olympic gold medal and the words 'Paris 2024 champion'.

'I have everything that I want to do here,' says Hughes, pointing to his phone. 'These are the things that I constantly see every day on my phone because this is something you are always on.

'I have the great Linford Christie as a motivation because he won the Olympics before and I want to be able to replicate that. I have been inspired by him.

'I have been looking back at old clips leading up towards the Olympics and his video is one I look back at a lot. It gave me the chills. I got goosebumps. I was like, 'Man, if I could only do something like this, replicate this memory and bring it to fruition, it would be exceptional for me'.

'I have had my goals written down since November and getting a gold medal is a goal. I'm looking forward to being part of the medal conversation.'

Hughes will run the 100m at Saturday's Diamond League meet at the London Stadium, his first race since suffering a grade one tear of his hamstring at a competition in Jamaica on June 1.

That injury saw him miss last month's European Championships and then the UK Championships, which doubled up as the British Olympic trials. But Hughes has been handed a discretionary spot to run the 100m and 200m for Team GB in Paris and insists he is now fully fit.

'When it happened, you start thinking, 'Oh my God, there are so many things at stake, will I be OK?',' he admits. 'But I only had a week and five days off from training when I got the injury.

'My coach said, 'I don't think that injury did too much to you, you seem like you got better'. So everything is going according to plan.

'I am pretty sure by London the speed will be back where it needs to be. I want to lay something down there.'

In London, Hughes will be up against world 100m and 200m champion Noah Lyles – their first showdown since the release of the Netflix series Sprint, in which the American is shown calling the Brit 'just another person to beat'.

'I didn't know he really said that much about me until I saw the preview and then I was like, 'Oh this guy can talk',' says Hughes. 'He has a loose mouth.

'Me being a competitor, it raised all the red in me. I was like, 'He just needs to shut up'. My girlfriend is the one who keeps me calm. She is like, 'Babe don't get flared up, don't let it get into your head'.

'I use that burning desire, that red in me as an athlete and I try to put it out on the track. It's the perfect timing leading up to the Olympic Games. I'll see him in London and have a talk.'

In Sprint, Hughes also discusses being labelled a 'Plastic Brit' in 2015 when he decided to compete for Team GB through his home country Anguilla being a British Overseas Territory.

Expanding on the issue, he says: 'When you just become part of a team and the first thing you see in an article was 'Plastic Brit', it felt a little hurtful.

'At the end of the day, we are all British in Anguilla. When we were young, you can hold the British passport. Once the public understood that, eventually people started to accept who I was.'

Hughes missed the Olympics in Rio in 2016 following a knee injury, then five years later at the Games in Tokyo, he was disqualified in the 100m final after a false start. Now he is ready make amends in Paris.

'Tokyo has helped me to become the athlete I have become right now,' he adds. 'Last year's performances were inspired because of the hard experiences in Tokyo. I would love to rewrite the history books from what happened.

'There is a saying - you may have been delayed but you are not denied. I believe in that and when it is my time, it will be my time.'

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